Category: News

Five people have died and hundreds are missing after a cruise ship carrying 458 people capsized on the Yangtze River in China’s Hubei province, the BBC reports.

The ship is floating upside down in a wide stretch of river – state media said rescuers tapping the hull had heard calls for help from inside.

The boat, the Eastern Star, reportedly sent no emergency signal.

Media reports say the alarm was raised by several people who had swum to shore and alerted the police.

Most of those on board were tourists aged around 50 to 80 travelling from the eastern city of Nanjing to Chongqing in the south-west – a journey of at least 1,500km.

Sepp Blatter says he will resign as president of football’s governing body FIFA amid a corruption scandal, the BBC reports.

In announcing his exit, the 79-year-old Swiss has called an extraordinary FIFA congress “as soon as possible” to elect a new president.

Blatter was re-elected last week, despite seven top FIFA officials being arrested two days before the vote as part of a US prosecution.

But he said: “My mandate does not appear to be supported by everybody.”

FIFA was rocked last week by the arrests on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering as part of a US prosecution that also indicted 14 people.

A separate criminal investigation by Swiss authorities into how the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were allocated is also under way.

“I am very much linked to FIFA and its interests. Those interests are dear to me and this is why I am taking this decision,” added Blatter.

“What counts most to me is the institute of FIFA and football around the world.”

Peter Balakian’s new books Ozone Journal (poems) and Vise and Shadow: Essays on the Lyric Imagination, Poetry, Art, and Culture have just been published by the University of Chicago Press, the Armenian Weekly reports.

The long poem in Balakian’s new book is a sequel to his acclaimed “A-Train/Ziggurat/Elegy” (2010). While excavating the remains of Armenian Genocide survivors in the Syrian desert with a TV crew, the persona navigates his own memory of New York City in a decade (the 1980’s) of crisis—as AIDS and climate change make a context for his personal struggles and his pursuit of meaning in the face of loss and catastrophe. Whether his poems explore Native American villages of New Mexico, the slums of Nairobi, or the Armenian-Turkish borderland, Balakian’s poems continue to engage the harshness and beauty of contemporary life in a language that is layered, sensual, elliptical, and defined by wired phrases and shifting tempos. Ozone Journal creates inventive lyrical insight in a global age of danger and uncertainty.

“In his new book, Ozone Journal, Balakian masterfully does the thing nobody else does, which is to derange history into poetry, to make poetry painting, to make painting culture, to make culture living, and with a historical depth that finds the right experience in language,” writes the poet Bruce Smith.

In Vise and Shadow, Balakian brings together his most influential essays of the past 25 years. He argues that the force of the lyric imagination is able to hold experience under pressure like a vise, while it also shadows history. Precise, lyrical, and eloquent, Balakian’s essays explore the ways poetry engages disaster and ingests mass-violence without succumbing to the didactic.

He gives us new insights into the relationships between trauma, memory, and aesthetic form. His essays on major Armenian voices (Charents, Gorky, and Siamanto) and the aftermath of genocide are a fresh contribution to contemporary literature and art. Other essays engage painting, collage, song-lyrics, and film as forms of enduring lyric knowledge, and include T.S. Eliot, Joan Didion, Robert Rauschenberg, Adrienne Rich, Hart Crane, Theodore Roethke, Elia Kazan and Bob Dylan.

About Vise and Shadow, James Carroll writes, “With soaring critical erudition, Peter Balakian’s essays range across multiple genres—poetry, memoir, film, visual art, history, ‘literary rock’—to create a brilliant ‘collage’ of both American imagination and Armenian memory. An elegantly written seminal work of sweeping importance.” Askold Melncyczuk writes, “Vise and Shadow belongs on a shelf alongside the literary essays of J. M. Coetzee, Adrienne Rich, and Seamus Heaney.”

Peter Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities at Colgate University. He is the author of seven books of poems and four prose works, including The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, a New York Times best seller, and Black Dog of Fate, a memoir, winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize.

The deal on the sale of Vorotan Hydro Cascade will be finalized in the coming days, Deputy Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Ara Simonyan said at the National Assembly during the discussion of the 2014 budget execution.

“The signing of the final deal is expected in the coming 2-3 days,” he said.

According to Simonyan, the Vorotan Cascade badly needs investments, and the government has not received any better proposals.

ContourGlobal and the Government of Armenia announced on January 29, 2014 that they had signed an agreement for ContourGlobal to purchase and modernize the Vorotan Hydro Cascade, a series of three hydroelectric power plants totaling 405 MW on the Vorotan River in southern Armenia, for a purchase price of $180 million USD. The cascade is one of the largest and most flexible power generating facilities in Armenia and the Caucuses.

By Andranik Israyelyan

In March 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the Prime Minister of Turkey, replacing Abdullah Gul; the latter took the post of the Foreign Minister. Meanwhile, Ahmet Davutoglu was invited to become the Prime Minister’s chief foreign policy adviser. This triumvirate would shape Turkish foreign policy for the next decade. The “Armenian opening” was one of the most challenging tasks for these foreign policy makers of Ankara.

Erdogan, a graduate of the religious Imam Hatip School and a former semi—professional football player, was the trio’s most powerful figure, yet he had a relatively passive role in shaping Turkish foreign policy. This is best explained by his narrow worldview. His chief adviser, Ibrahim Kalin, would later describe Erdogan as a politician rather than a diplomat, and one with a poor understanding of international relations. In Kalin’s words, Erdogan “passionately believes in such values as justice” and equates such values with Islam. In hosting Sudan’s President, Omar al Bashir, in 2008, Erdogan brushed off the International Criminal Court indictment against al Bashir for genocide, claiming Muslims cannot commit genocide. Indeed, when it comes to mending fences, Erdogan is not the best candidate for the job. His tirades and hate speeches have even led to a breakdown in Turkey’s relations with Israel, Egypt, and Syria.

Abdullah Gul, a graduate of the UK’s University of Exeter, has always been a man of integrity. When in 2003 Foreign Minister Gul met with his Armenian counterpart Vartan Oskanian and expressed his readiness to start a normalization process free from preconditions, it was music to the ears for Armenia’s top diplomat. Yet months later, Gul confessed to Oskanian that intense debate within the inner cycle of Turkish leadership had concluded that Azerbaijan’s interests could not be sidestepped. This, perhaps, was the first row between the ideologues and pragmatists on the “Armenian opening.”

Already serving as President in 2008, Gul accepted the invitation from his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan to visit Yerevan. This was the start of what has become known among foreign policy circles as “football diplomacy.” As Gul had been the driving force behind the Armenian opening in Turkey, his Foreign Minister, Ali Babacan, was an excellent candidate for the routine work. An economist educated in the US, Babacan is a pragmatist, and according to a senior Armenian diplomat, “open to new ideas.” This Gul—Babacan duo appeared to be the key to moving forward the process of normalization.

As these pragmatists pushed the process forward, Turkey’s ideologues did not hesitate to jump in and wreak havoc. And they did it quickly. In May 2009, Babacan was replaced by Ahmet Davutoglu. A historian who refrained from studying in the West and preferred the Islamic world, Davutoglu had extensively written on the problems of Turkey and the Islamic world. Those familiar with hisworks viewed him as a man who deeply believes in civilizational differences and sees the world through a religious prism.

Upon taking the office of Foreign Minister, Davutoglu, according to senior US diplomat David Phillips, rushed to scratch the Protocols between Armenia and Turkey. The man who had noted in his book Strategic Depth that the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh was Turkey’s greatest territorial loss since the Cold War intended to push Armenia to make unilateral concessions. A few days later after Davutoglu’s appointment, Erdogan went to Baku to allay Azerbaijani fears about normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations. What happened next was unimaginable for Gul and for Davutoglu.Ignoring the briefings by the Foreign Ministry, Erdogan declared that borders with Armenia will not open until Armenian troops withdraw from all “occupied territories of Azerbaijan.” In a moment of irony, the “football diplomacy” was obliterated by none other than a former footballer because of his aversion to diplomacy.

In 2010, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan had to suspend the ratification of the Protocols due to this Turkish policy of linkage. Sargsyan expressed gratitude to President Gul “for political correctness displayed throughout the period and the positive relationship” that had developed between them. As Gul left the office in 2014, Armenia lost the last pragmatist in Turkey’s political elite, while Babacan, in the position of deputy Prime Minister, continues to struggle with Erdogan’s disastrous economic policies. Davutoglu, the former academic, is now Turkey’s Prime Minister and has been gradually developing polarizing vocabulary for domestic politics. Erdogan, for his part, has set his sights on turning Turkey into a presidential republic so as to remain at the helm of Turkish politics. Whenever someone speaks of the “Armenian opening,” it is to blame Gul for “giving Armenia an upper hand in relations with Turkey.” Within this context, the new Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, is left with no other option but to fault Armenia for stalling the normalization process, and to lay the blame for Turkey’s tarnished image abroad with the Armenian Diaspora.

Andranik Israyelyan is an International Relations scholar. He holds a PhD degree in World History and defended his thesis on Turkish foreign policy under the AK Party (2002-12) at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Armenia. He works at the Diplomatic School of Armenia. 

In April, Iranian Armenian Andranik Teymourian, who has played for Bolton Wanderers and Fulham, became the first Christian to lead Iran’s football team as its permanent captain, according to

“I’m happy that as a Christian I play in a Muslim team,” he said in a recent interview. “I have Armenian roots but I hold the Iranian passport and I’m proud of that, I hold my flag high. I hope I can enhance the good reputation of Armenian people in Iran.”

According to The Guardian, ethnic Armenians make up the majority of Iran’s estimated 300,000 Christians. Armenians are fully integrated in Iranian society, from the musician Loris Tjeknavorian to Sombat Hacoupian, who founded one of the country’s most famous men’s clothing brands and is now a household name.

Although Islam is Iran’s official religion, it recognizes Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians as accepted religious minorities. They are permitted their house of worship and usual religious services, and have reserved seats in the Iranian parliament. In a country where alcohol and pigmeat are forbidden, Christians are allowed to distil booze and eat pork.

There are at least 600 churches in Iran, including the sixth-century St Mary Church of Tabriz, mentioned by Marco Polo in his travel book and the ancient St Thaddeus Monastery, a Unesco world heritage site.

In April, as Iran’s northern neighbour, Armenia, commemorated the centenary of the 1915 genocide, the Iranian government, which is usually nervous about public gatherings, took a rare decision to allow Iranian Armenians to stage a protest in front of the Turkish embassy in Tehran.

Irritated by accusations of lavishness, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to resign if the leader of the main opposition can find a single golden toilet seat in his vast new palace, reports.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has repeatedly criticised Erdogan’s profligacy in campaign speeches ahead of a June 7 parliamentary election.

“Gentlemen in Ankara, palaces have been built for you, planes bought, Mercedes cars purchased … golden seats have been bought, that’s how you use the toilet,” Kilicdaroglu said at a rally in the Aegean city of Izmir on Saturday.

Erdogan, who moved into the controversial new 1,000-room palace complex after winning a presidential election last August, challenged Kilicdaroglu to prove his assertion.

“I invite him to please come and take a tour … I wonder if he will be able to find such a golden toilet seat in any of these washrooms,” Erdogan said in an interview with state broadcaster TRT late on Sunday.

“If he finds it, I will resign from the presidency.”

Brightly illuminated at night and sitting on a hilltop, the complex – nicknamed Ak Saray or the White Palace – dominates the skyline on the western edge of the Turkish capital.

Previous heads of state used a more modest old palace, but Erdogan’s move came as he launched what he has dubbed a “New Turkey”, in which he aspires to amend the constitution and create a full executive presidential system.

President Serzh Sargsyan attended today the opening ceremony of the Hayastan Cinema in the administrative district of Malatia-Sebastia. During the tour, the Armenian president familiarized himself with the cinema the renovation of which had started in 2013 and the opportunities of the modern family entertainment center (cinema, playrooms, music entertainment center) created as a result of eight-million-dollar investments.

The center also includes food outlets and cafeterias for family relaxation. According to the executives, the music entertainment center is to open in two to three months. In parallel with the cinema renovation, one-hectare area of the adjacent park has also been improved where around 500 trees of different varieties have been planted, the lighting system of both the park and the building has been completely redesigned and the fountains in the park have been renovated.

The center will also implement charitable projects and organize training courses for young cinematographers and experts in technical cinematography.

This year, the cinema will open its doors to the participants of the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival: the movies selected for the festival will be shown, the participating directors and actors will be hosted, discussions will be held and movies will be watched.

 

The Armenian national team will play Euro-2016 qualifying round match against Portugal on June 13. The team will hold a training campaign from 5^th  to 13^th of June in FFA Technical centre/Football academy. Armenian national team interim head coach Sargis Hovsepyan called up 25 players to take part in training campaign:

Goalkeepers

Roman Berezovsky Dinamo (Moscow, Russia)

Gevorg Kasparov (FC Mika)

Arsen Beglaryan (Ulisses FC)

Defenders

Robert Arzumanyan Amkar (Kazakhstan)

Hrayr Mkoyan Esteghlal (Iran)

Gael Andonyan Olimpic (Marseille, France)

Levon Airapetian FC Pyunik

Taron Voskanyan FC Pyunik

Varazdat Haroyan FC Pyunik

Kamo Hovhannisyan FC Pyunik

Artur Avagyan FC Gandzasar

Midfielders

Henrikh Mkhitaryan Borussia (Dortmund, Germany)

Gevorg Ghazaryan Kerkyra (Greece)

Marcos Pizzelli Aktobe (Kazakhstan)

Aras Ozbiliz Spartak (Moscow, Russia)

Rumyan Hovsepyan Metallurg (Donetsk, Ukraine)

Norayr Aslanyan Almere City (Netherlands)

Artem Simonyan Zurich (Switzerland)

Zaven Badoyan FC Pyunik

Karlen Mkrtchyan FC Pyunik

Artur Yuspashyan FC Pyunik

Forwards

Yura Movsisyan Spartak (Moscow, Russia)

Artur Sarkisov Volga (Russia)

Ruslan Koryan Lokomotiv (Tashkent, Uzbekistan)

Artur Miranyan FK Vardar (FYR Macedonia)

Malaysia Airlines is “technically bankrupt”, its chief executive has said, as he announced a restructuring programme and plans to cut about 6,000 jobs, the BBC reports.

The announcement follows the twin air disasters which forced its nationalisation last year.

The airline said it had “offered jobs” to 14,000 of its 20,000 workforce.

The move was expected and follows the appointment of new chief executive Christoph Mueller in May.

“We are technically bankrupt,” Mr Mueller told a news conference. “The decline of performance started long before the tragic events of 2014.”

The airline is operating as normal and no flights are currently affected.

In March last year, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew aboard. The plane is still missing.

Four months later, flight MH17 was shot down by a suspected ground-to-air missile while in Ukrainian airspace, with the loss of 298 passengers and crew.

The two disasters proved to be the final straw for the already struggling business, which had reported losses for several years as a result of strong regional competition.